Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
on Tuesday March 11, 2014 @01:12PM
from the lingering-effects dept.

AmiMoJo writes "Today Japan marks the third anniversary of the 11th of March 2011 disaster when the country was hit by a magnitude 9 earthquake huge tsunami and severe nuclear accident. More than 18,500 people were killed or went missing. Nearly 3,000 others died while evacuated from their homes, and over a quarter of a million people were still living in temporary housing as of February. Work to build new housing on higher ground is lagging behind schedule.

Three reactors melted down at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following the quake and tsunami, but the exact cause of the accident is still unknown. How massive amounts of radioactive materials from the reactors were dispersed is also unclear. Today was also the day when hundreds of former residents announced that they were suing TEPCO, the plant operator, and the government for additional compensation."
Although the nuclear accident was dwarfed by the other devastation, the effects of the meltdown will be felt for much longer. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists published an article today on the reactors that didn't meltdown, and the NRC chair has some comments on the progress at Fukishima.

You mean the 20,000 deaths caused by the Tsunami compared to the 0 deaths related to anything nuclear, where the handful of deaths surrounding the incident were caused by inaction and fear of radiation?

http://fukushima.ans.org/

The physical effects of the Tsunami were incredibly more devastating than the Fukushima meltdown, however the psychological effects of the meltdown are truly staggering. It's a difference between facts and perception that, three years later, isn't going anywhere it seems. Nuclear is only scary if you don't look at what it actually is.

The key difference being that the tsunami was a natural disaster that was difficult to prevent. The Fukushima accident was caused by incompetence and could have been avoided, as it was at other nuclear plants.

Focusing on deaths is arbitrary and designed solely to try and underplay the devastating effects of the nuclear disaster on the people forced to evacuate and on Japan's economy. As TFA points out there are still too many unknowns to say exactly how bad Fukushima is.

Some 160,000 people were evacuated as a precautionary measure, and prolonging the evacuation resulted in the deaths of about 1100 of them due to stress, and some due to disruption of medical and social welfare facilities.

Or perhaps look at a chart showing the magnitude of radiation around Fukushima with respect to time:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Fukushima7.png

There is always radiation around us from natural sources (cosmic, ground, foods), so when the background radiation of the surrounding area is at a normal level, then why are people concerned? The numbers don't add up, but the perception of fear continues.

Some 160,000 people were evacuated as a precautionary measure, and prolonging the evacuation resulted in the deaths of about 1100 of them due to stress, and some due to disruption of medical and social welfare facilities.

So you are basically agreeing with me. There was no way to know how bad the disaster was at the time they evacuated, and the levels in the evacuation area above safe limits in parts so clearly it was necessary. Your map has hundreds of metres per pixel, it doesn't show hot spots which are the problem, only an average.

I'm not sure what your point is... It was a disaster, people died as a result.

I'm not agreeing, I'm just trying to point out a few more numbers that show the magnitude of the damage caused by radiation is significantly less than the magnitude of psychological damages and unwarranted fear of radiation that seems to espoused throughout the internet.

While not everyone is expected to be an informed citizen on every topic (nuclear science and engineering in this case), it's harmful to let dis-information spread and generate more fear.

The Fukushima accident was caused by incompetence and could have been avoided, as it was at other nuclear plants.

I glanced through your posts to get an idea of what you thought "incompetence" was. It appears [slashdot.org] that you think not building the seawall higher at Fukushima was an example and that you agree with the blithe and wrong assumption that it was "corporate culture" which was at fault - even though the same TEPCO corporate culture also existed at the Onagawa plant.

Focusing on deaths is arbitrary

Death is a very concrete measure of harm.

underplay the devastating effects of the nuclear disaster on the people forced to evacuate and on Japan's economy

Keep in mind that a lot of the harm comes from hysteria not nuclear accidents. For example, why are no Japanese n

I glanced through your posts to get an idea of what you thought "incompetence" was. It appears that you think not building the seawall higher at Fukushima was an example and that you agree with the blithe and wrong assumption that it was "corporate culture" which was at fault - even though the same TEPCO corporate culture also existed at the Onagawa plant.

You are not very good at reading comprehension.

Death is a very concrete measure of harm.

Except that it ignores all the people who survived by are now suffering. In the case of Fukushima it is often chosen deliberately to ignore those people because the speaker is trying to make out that it was not very harmful.

For example, why are no Japanese nuclear plants on line? There's no safety issue for most of the nuclear plants which weren't effected by the earthquakes.

Actually there is. Many of them experienced near or above their lateral force limits during the earthquake, and it is standard procedure after one to shut down and do a full inspection to look for damage. It takes a lot of time to do, and si

That's what's written there. I'll quote it in full so we don't have this particular disagreement again:

The key paragraph:

Most people believe that Fukushima DaiichiÃ(TM)s meltdowns were predominantly due to the earthquake and tsunami. The survival of Onagawa, however, suggests otherwise. Onagawa was only 123 kilometers away from the epicenterÃ"60 kilometers closer than Fukushima DaiichiÃ"and the difference in seismic intensity at the two plants was negligible. Furthermore, the tsunami was bigger at Onagawa, reaching a height of 14.3 meters, compared with 13.1 meters at Fukushima Daiichi. The difference in outcomes at the two plants reveals the root cause of Fukushima DaiichiÃ(TM)s failures: the utilityÃ(TM)s corporate Ãoesafety culture.Ã

A natural disaster is a tragedy. A man-made disaster due to corporate culture is a crime.

TEPCO runs both the Fukushima Daiichi and Onagawa plants. It's the same corporate culture which in one case you laud and another you declare a "crime".

Also, note that Onagawa remains off line. When is it going to be rewarded for its good "corporate culture" by being allowed to restart?

Death is a very concrete measure of harm.

Except that it ignores all the people who survived by are now suffering. In the case of Fukushima it is often chosen deliberately to ignore those people because the speaker is trying to make out that it was not very harmful.

If we're going by that measure, the earthquake still caused a lot more suffering. Also a lot - if not most - of that suf

Are you sure other deaths from the tsunami couldn't have been prevented? Perhaps some of them could have been avoided if there hadn't been incompetence and official neglect. Even a few cases of badly placed construction and inadequate disaster planning could have resulted in a lot of deaths. We don't hear about those.

Many of the devastating effects from the Fukushima disaster proper were because of ignorance and irrational fear of radiation. You're claiming that nukes are scary because people are sca

Because the people are dead and the destruction has been done and is over. The meltdown is ongoing and will affect the region for a lot longer than the tsunami ever could.It also highlights not the threat of nuclear power, but the threat of politics and nuclear power combined make. That plant should have been shutdown for years, a new one should have been built using upgraded technology. But thanks to politics, that wasn't done and they extended the reactor for many more years than it was made to be oper

That's be cause while 20,000 died as a direct result of the devastation, and and billions upon billions was lost and millions lives were displaced because of the matter, there is an end in sight for those people where they can rebuild. There are no concerns in the long term for their life. That doesn't make their loss any less insignificant, just their loss will not linger as long as those of the Fukushima area. Look at Chernobyl 28 years later. We still have concern for what happened there.

Right. Your life was altered because somebody you love was near the disaster.

Consider that with twenty thousand deaths, there were a lot of people who died who were loved by people who came out OK. They can't be rebuilt. The effects of that are going to last more than 28 years.

Why do you hate the Japanese? The A-bombs likely saved a million+ Japanese lives. Invasion or starving them out, would have cost much more.

No they weren't ready to surrender. That's pure bullshit.

Has there ever been any conclusive proof on this? I'm sure that's the thought process the US wanted everyone to think, as the US is the only country to ever use a nuclear weapon outside of testing. But the victors usually do get to write history, and I've never seen any kind of historical (or even statistical) consensus that dropping the bomb saved lives. Seems to me that the Truman administration -and any administrations following- would want the prevailing narrative to be "dropping the bombs saved lives."

The main points I see are the comments that even at the end of the war at most 1-3% of Japanese soldiers would surrender and the killed to wounded ratio of Japanese vs anyone else. Also note the low number civilian casualties among the Japanese relative to anyone else.

"Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the casualties resulting from the invasion of Japan; the number exceeded that of all American military casualties of the 65 years following the end of World War II, including the Korean and Vietnam Wars. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock."

I wouldn't say that Japan started the conflict. They fired the first shot but the US pushed them into a corner where the war became inevitable. That push came after the Japanese invades south east Asia and French forces had surrended to them. The US them came out swinging demanding that Japan leave south east Asia and withdraw from China. The US had not previously demanded Japan withdraw from China when all the atrocities were going on. When Japan made a counteroffer of withdrawing from south east Asia and

It's a little thing called context, which you blatantly disregarded in your attempt to be pedantic. The entire post was phrased in the context of US-Japanese relations on how individual acts of Japanese aggression caused various responses by the US. Until December 7 (8), 1942 the Japan and US were not at a state of war. Being in a state of war with one country does not prevent you from going to war with a country you were previous not at war with.

In the meantime, the US had been supplying the Japanese with oil and iron, that they needed to support their war machine so they could continue to commit atrocities in China. Japan attacked the US because the US cut off that supply, not because of hostile diplomatic notes.

The following has a good summary of what lead up to the Pacific War but to summarize... the US embargo was not coupled with any reasonable demands that Japan take. The final embargos came after the Japanese invasion of French Indochina but the demands were over territory that the US had shown no significant previous interest in and had no strategic or economic interest in (China). The American demands to give up on their empire, coupled with the embargo, was telling Japan that they needed to submit to subse

Be really careful about trying to rationalize civilian deaths. Claim its necessary all you want, just be clear about the kind of company youre keeping when you let "the greater good" rationalize mass killings.

You also realize that both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were part of the war machine in Japan, right? Hate to say it but bombing cities was a common tactic by all sides back then. War has never been fair. If we ever found ourselves in a situation similar to WW2, I dare say it would happen again, too, by every side.

Conclusive proof? Probably not but it was a reasonable expectation. America was well aware of many of the atrocities that were going on during the 2nd Sino-Japanese war leading up to World War II. Japanese soldiers in the army were infused with an utterly bastardized form of bushido and were treated barbaricly by their superiors.

Hiroshima was very must a strategically justified target on military grounds. It was the headquarters of the Japanese 2nd General Army which was responsible for the defense of a sig

and I've never seen any kind of historical (or even statistical) consensus that dropping the bomb saved lives

Hmm, Kokura, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Yokohama, and Niigata were put on a list of cities that were not to be bombed conventionally, so as to allow for a good analysis of the effects of atomic bombing, if, as and when.

So it's pretty safe to say that the populations of Yokohama, Kokura, and Niigata were saved as a result of the decision to use the bomb.

There is no conclusive proof of what the Japanese were going to do, but it doesn't look encouraging.

See "Downfall", by Richard Frank, for a good account of Japanese (lack of) decision-making and what the US knew. Japan asked Stalin to serve as a mediator, but never could come up with a proposal to pass on. The Liaison Council was deadlocked. Japanese strategy all along had been to make the US pay bitterly for every advance in order to discourage them, and fighting on the home islands was consistent wi

Trying to justify anything in a war, particularly one operating on a principle of "total war", is a fool's errand.

Im not sure anything, even the supposed lives it saved or the apparent necessity, could justify the indiscriminate bombing of a civilian population. Yes, that goes for the various firebombings. Claiming that they were potential combatants doesnt change that they werent actual combatants.

Bombing Japan may have been the lesser of two evils, but dont let anyone tell you that it wasnt one of the t

Japan was close to surrender before the bombs were dropped. It's a well established historical fact. The situation was already dire, the Pacific fleet was mostly resting on the bottom, Russia was threatening to attack from the west, it was obvious that victory was impossible and defeat was only a matter of time. Even the military knew it, which is why they were resorting to ever more desperate tactics like suicide attacks.

There are plenty of letters written by those in positions of power at the time stating all this, it was very clear to them. The political will to do it was proving hard to muster, but it was building and it's doubtful that the bombs shorted the war by more than weeks or a few months at most. In particular the threat of being split in two like Germany if Russia attacked meant that surrender would actually have been preferable.

America had developed this terrible new weapon and realized that it was only a matter of time before others did too. They wanted to find out what the effects of a nuclear attack would be, especially on cities and human beings. Computer modelling and the like didn't exist, but here was an opportunity to try it out.

If the goal was simply to end the war swiftly the bombs could have been dropped on unpopulated or remote military only targets. They were not, they were dropped on civilian cities. I have yet to hear an explanation of why that was, other than to conduct tests. How do you explain it?

What? Your post doesn't make a lot of sense and doesn't seem to disagree. Japan was not on the verge of surrender.

The fact that some Japanese people were in denial doesn't change the fact that they knew or should have known (we were telling them) that we had nuked Hiroshima. It took a second city being destroyed to get them to give up.

Claiming that we could have just nuked a rock in Tokyo bay is laughable, but is frequently repeated by the likes of the GGP.

The Japanese were aware that the Hiroshima bomb was an atomic bomb, and what it could do. There had been a couple of Japanese nuclear programs (one Army, one Navy), and Japan did not lack good scientists. However, they concluded that refinement of U-235 was a very long process, and didn't expect the US to have another for a year. The Nagasaki bomb, which used plutonium instead of uranium, proved that the US could have many more bombs.

Hiroshima was the headquarters of the Japanese 2nd General Army which was responsible for the defense of Western Japan. The effect of the bomb was to write off the entire army as nearly its entire command staff was killed, it's logistics were thoroughly wrecked, and numerous combat units for that army were entirely written off by the bomb.

Additionally, it didn't matter if plenty of people in high positions believed the war was over and that surrender was the only option. You're ignoring the political climat

Most people believe that Fukushima Daiichiâ(TM)s meltdowns were predominantly due to the earthquake and tsunami. The survival of Onagawa, however, suggests otherwise. Onagawa was only 123 kilometers away from the epicenterâ"60 kilometers closer than Fukushima Daiichiâ"and the difference in seismic intensity at the two plants was negligible. Furthermore, the tsunami was bigger at Onagawa, reaching a height of 14.3 meters, compared with 13.1 meters at Fukushima Daiichi. The difference in outcomes at the two plants reveals the root cause of Fukushima Daiichiâ(TM)s failures: the utilityâ(TM)s corporate âoesafety culture.â

A natural disaster is a tragedy. A man-made disaster due to corporate culture is a crime.

While Tohoku Electric learned from past earthquakes and tsunamis--including one in Chile on February 28, 2010--and continuously improved its countermeasures...Tepco "resorted to delaying tactics, such as presenting alternative scientific studies and lobbying."

And that, folks, is how you can tell apart arrogant people who are spouting propaganda from arrogant people who don't. The guys spouting the propaganda habitually make up lies. They put words into people's mouths that they would have liked them to have said, because it would prove their point.

Google [google.com] finds exactly one place on the whole of the internet, in which this quote appears:

I remember when this happened it was like 1am or so.. maybe a bit later and I was flipping through channels and I saw this weird looking flood type thing.. and a bunch of Japanese looking text.... it was the NHK channel

it was going for a very long time, perhaps an hour or more, before it appeared on your CNNs and and NBCs and such..

It was shocking and compelling footage from a helicopter of the tsunami rolling over the landscape..

it was an interesting way to come up on a news story... it was in a language I didnt understand, not on a "news" channel (this channel normally just had japanese language variety type programming) and I couldn't even quite tell what was happening at first.. but by the warnings on the screen, and the tone of the voices of the people talking you knew it was a huge event.. you could see that it was..

over the next few days that channel was what I watched almost exclusively.. I never understood a word of it.. but the scope of things just got worse and worse.. and that was something that seemed missing from the American coverage.... it never quite conveyed the violence, the horror and the magnitude....it is kind of hard for CNN do when they need to cut away for Cheerios commercials

It was mid afternoon and I was doing some shopping in a model train shop in Akiba. 5th floor. Everything started to sway a lot and I knew it was big, but at the time didn't really appreciate just how big. Japan is mostly earthquake proof so it's not like buildings were falling down around me or anything, but the shop took some damage as stuff was knocked over. When it finally stopped everyone made their way down the stairs and out onto the street, away from buildings in case of aftershocks and falling debris.

I sent an email to my mother from my phone, letting her know I was okay. After a while people just went back to shopping again, or wondering around seeing if there was much damage. There wasn't really in Tokyo, a few burst pipes and bits fallen off buildings but nothing too terrible. Some shops closed, others stayed open for a while but then decided to close early as news came in that the trains were not running.

I was actually kind of annoyed about the trains and eventually walked home since it was only maybe 5-6km. Watched some coverage on the news that evening with friends and it slowly started to become apparent just what had happened and how bad it was. More and more footage kept coming in and we just couldn't stop watching. NHK covered it 24/7 for the next week or so.

The next day we were hearing that Fukushima was in crisis, but there was little information to go on. Foreign news agencies were hyping it up, CNN called it worse than Hiroshima. People were mostly quite calm about it though, more worried than anything. Over the next few days it got worse and worse, but even so there wasn't mass panic.

The real concern now is the long term effects. People are aware that it took years for children near Chernobyl to be diagnosed with cancer, so they want their own children checked regularly to catch it as early as possible. Some people say it isn't needed, but if you had been in Japan at the time and seen the lack of information and clarity from the government and TEPCO you would understand why they feel they can't take their word for that.

A while back I caught a local story about a company making tsunami survival pods that are being sold in Japan now. After that disaster, I guess it doesn't seem like such a far-fetched thing to be prepared for one of these if possible. It would be nice if the price could come down to the point that ordinary people could actually afford them. Unfortunately, there's just no way to run far enough with so little warning like they had back then.

Maybe what they should do is mark the high water mark and encourage people to not build below that point.
Stones in the ground around the ocean front of the country might work. Then if there is ever another Tsunami then there won't be so much damage!
Wait what? They have those already?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04... [nytimes.com]

It explain how a more stressed nuclear plant on the sea shore hadn't catastrophic consequences after the tsunami:
Safety culture impulsed by a man.

Onagawa was only 123 kilometers away from the epicenter—60 kilometers closer than Fukushima Daiichi—and the difference in seismic intensity at the two plants was negligible. Furthermore, the tsunami was bigger at Onagawa, reaching a height of 14.3 meters, compared with 13.1 meters at Fukushima Daiichi. The difference in outcomes at the two plants reveals the root cause of Fukushima Daiichi’s failures: the utility’s corporate “safety culture.”
[...]
Yanosuke Hirai, vice president of Tohoku Electric from 1960 to 1975—a time period that preceded the 1980 groundbreaking at Onagawa—was adamant about safety protocols and became a member of the Coastal Institution Research Association in 1963 because of his concern about the importance of protecting against natural disasters. With a senior employee in upper management advocating forcefully for safety, a strong safety culture formed within the company.

See what they did in Onagawa in the article: plant built on higher ground, five times the estimated average tsunami height, plus tsunami response aware teams.
Tepco did the oposite: "to make it easier to transport equipment and to save construction costs, in 1967 [they] removed 25 meters from the 35-meter natural sea